Neurosurgery
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Case Reports
Osteoma of the frontoethmoidal sinus with secondary brain abscess and intracranial mucocele: case report.
The authors report the case of a 17-year-old patient with an osteoma of the frontoethmoidal sinus who had a secondary abscess of the frontal lobe and an intracranial mucocele. Clinical, radiological, and surgical correlates of this triad are presented.
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Ventriculoperitoneal shunt malfunction is most commonly caused by obstruction of the ventricular catheter by choroid plexus. Such ventricular catheter obstructions remain a major unsolved problem, despite improvements in materials, catheter design, new valves, and increased emphasis on precise techniques favoring optimal catheter placement. ⋯ Such revisions require a general anesthetic in addition to the operative procedure and are followed by a minimum hospitalization of 2 to 3 days. Our experience with hundreds of shunt revisions prompted novel ideas for the development of a new ventricular catheter to treat or prevent this common and previously unresolved difficulty effectively.
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Between January 1990 and February 1992, a total of 301 patients underwent discectomy for lumbar disc herniation; 29 had an extreme lateral herniation, i.e., foraminal or extraforaminal. The intervertebral foramen is a three-dimensional area demarcated primarily by the pedicles; we call it the lateral interpedicular compartment. The extraforaminal zone is the space outside the lateral border of the pedicles. ⋯ In two cases of both foraminal and extraforaminal herniation, the same technique was used. Fourteen patients with foraminal disc herniation and three patients with both foraminal and extraforaminal herniation underwent a standard intervertebral foraminotomy. An accurate preoperative diagnosis established by disco-CT is crucial in order to select the most suitable surgical approach.
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In a series of 40 patients undergoing an awake craniotomy for the removal of a glioma of the dominant hemisphere temporal lobe, cortical stimulation mapping was used to localize essential language sites. These sites were localized to distinct temporal lobe sectors and compared with 83 patients without tumors who had undergone language mapping for the treatment of intractable epilepsy. In patients with and without temporal lobe gliomas, the superior temporal gyrus contained significantly more language sites than the middle temporal gyrus. ⋯ The distance of the resection margin from the nearest language site was the most important variable in determining the improvement in preoperative language deficits, the duration of postoperative language deficits, and whether the postoperative language deficits were permanent. If the distance of the resection margin from the nearest language site was > 1 cm, significantly fewer permanent language deficits occurred. Cortical stimulation mapping for the identification of essential language sites in patients with gliomas of the dominant hemisphere temporal lobe will maximize the extent of tumor resection and minimize permanent language deficits.